Recent technical difficulties experience by cloud computing giant Amazon have led some analysts to discuss issues surrounding the reliability and performance of cloud-based solutions.
Despite this increased attention, however, some experts are claiming that cloud security will remain the most important issue for many considering cloud adoption.
Amazon’s outage affected a number of popular websites, including Reddit, FourSquare and Quora. The problems affected Amazon’s services for more than two days, affecting users and clients.
Kyle Hilgendorf, a cloud computing analyst for research firm Gartner, told Computerworld the Amazon outage is likely to shift some attention to cloud reliability, but ultimately cloud security will remain the most important concern for most businesses.
“Obviously these issues are very heightened right now and will continue to be so for quite a while, in light of the outage,” Hilgendorf said. In part, this is due to the fact that Amazon carries an “aura of invincibility, whether intentional or not.”
The incident will remind many businesses that “nobody is perfect and increased due diligence is required,” according to Hilgendorf. Nevertheless, businesses need not be more concerned about performance in the cloud that about reliability in other environments, he added.
According to Hilgendorf, security is still a “bigger, long-term concern.” Hilgendorf told Computerworld most cloud security concerns are related to access control, accidental release of protected data and user authentication.
Hilgendorf’s assessment was echoed by Jonathan Penn, an analyst for Forrester Research. Like Hilgendorf, Penn acknowledged that the Amazon outage may increase anxiety about cloud performance in some companies. Nevertheless, he said security is set to remain the key cloud computing concern.
As a growing number of companies are recognizing both the potential of the cloud and its risks, cloud computing security has become a central focus of governmental cloud initiatives. U.S. federal government CIO Vivek Kundra called for the implementation of international standards for cloud computing security.
